Power control of servers using advanced configuration and power interface (ACPI) states

Abstract

A method of managing power consumption by a plurality of blade servers within a processing system. The speed of at least one of the plurality of blade servers is reduced in response to the processing system reaching a power or thermal threshold. At least one of the plurality of blade servers is identified as not being critical to maintain in a working state and the critical blade server is put in a sleep state. A satellite management controller may control blade server power consumption and heat generation in various ways that combine processor speed-stepping and control of processor sleep states. Known sleep states save more power than speed-stepping by turning off the processor and / or volatile memory. The processor speed and sleep-states of at least one non-critical blade server, and optionally the processor speed of a critical processor, may be changed in order to control the power consumption below a power threshold or control the temperature below a thermal threshold.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to power management in a computer system having multiple devices, such as in a rack-based server system or data center.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]Multiple servers and other computer hardware are often consolidated into a centralized data center. Servers in a data center may be mounted in a rack to conserve space and place the servers and infrastructure within easy reach of an administrator. The IBM eServer BLADECENTER is one example of a compact server arrangement (IBM and BLADECENTER are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y.).[0005]When multiple servers and other computing hardware are consolidated, power to the servers must be carefully monitored and controlled. Power consumption affects many aspects of operating a data center, such as the costs of operating the servers, the heat generated by the servers, and the performance a...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009]One embodiment of the invention provides a method of managing the amount of power consumed by a plurality of blade servers within a processing system. In a preferred embodiment, the method further includes reducing the speed of at least one of the plurality of blade servers in response to determining that the processing system has reached a thermal or power threshold. The method comprises identifying at least one of the plurality of blade servers that is not critical to maintain in a working state, and putting the at least one non-critical blade server in a sleep state in response to determining that the processing system has reached a thermal or power threshold. Accordingly, a satellite management controller or management entity, such as a chassis management module or remote management console, may control blade server power consumption and heat generation in various ways that combine processor speed-stepping and control of processor sleep states.

[0010]Optionally, the satellite management controller may place the at least one non-critical blade server in a sleep state by sending an Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) message to command the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) to put the at least one non-critical blade server in a sleep state. The BMC may put the at least one non-critical blade server in the sleep state by sending an IPMI message to the operating system. The sleep state is preferably a “standby” state that loads the contents of the operating system in the main (volatile) memory and maintains power to main memory within the device while power is shut off to the processor and a majority of other components within the device. Alternatively, the sleep state may be a “hibernation” state that saves the content of the operating system from main memory within the device to a hard drive and turns off the power to both the processor and the main memory. Although both of these sleep states save power by turning off the processor, the “hibernation” state consumes less power because it also turns off the volatile memory. Accordingly, the processor speed and sleep-states of at least one non-critical blade server, and optionally the processor speed of a critical processor, may be changed in order to control the power consumption below a power threshold or control the temperature below a thermal threshold. It is possible to incrementally change the processor speed across multiple speeds or incrementally change the sleep state across multiple sleep states in order to achieve finer adjustments in the power consumption or temperature.

Problems solved by technology

Although both of these sleep states save power by turning off the processor, the “hibernation” state consumes less power because it also turns off the volatile memory.

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